BERLIN – With less than six months left before Germans vote for a new chancellor, the political vacuum left by Angela Merkel after 16 years of consensus-oriented leadership is coming into sharp focus.
A rare and brutal power struggle gripped Germany’s Conservatives this week, with two rivals fighting to replace her, threatening to further weaken her Christian Democratic Union, which is already moving into the polls.
Normally, Armin Laschet (60), who was elected to lead the party in January, would almost certainly be the heir of me. Be Merkel. Instead, he finds himself unexpectedly challenged against his biggest rival, Markus Söder, the more popular head of a smaller party in Bavaria, the Christian Social Union, in a kind of conservative family dispute.
Experts as well as party members are calling for the dispute to be resolved within the next few days, as it would damage the reputation of the two conservative parties, collectively called the Union. Because the two parties act as one on the national stage, they have to choose one candidate for chancellor.
“Armin Laschet and Markus Söder must finally understand their responsibility to the Union,” Tilman Kuban, head of the Young Union, told the Bild on Thursday. “If they continue to tear each other apart as they have for the past few days, they will work together to ensure that in the future there will not be much left of the Christian Democrats or the Christian Socialists.”
The guidance of Ms. Merkel’s party would once be seen as an advantage for Mr. Laschet, but it has recently become a draw. With the explosion of the vaccine and a confusing response to the pandemic, conservative support has fallen by 10 percentage points since the beginning of the year.
After a series of personal gaffes, Mr. Laschet’s popularity declined. In his homeland North Rhine-Westphalia, more than half the population said they were not happy with his performance, and a poll this week showed that only 4 percent of Germans nationwide considered him a strong leader.
At the same time, Mr. Söder (54), who is also governor of Bavaria, in various artificial ways with me. Merkel uses pandemic-related meetings to glorify his image as a leader, who can tackle difficult issues and get things done. done.
As many as 57 percent of Germans said that Mr. Söder displays the qualities of a ‘strong leader’.
Aware of his popularity, Söder publicly campaigned for the candidate earlier this week, citing his strong, stable performance in Laschet polls, despite warnings from senior conservatives that public opinion could be fickle.
“At the end of the day, the Conservative parties must make an offer that will be acceptable to voters and the people, and not just a few party functionaries,” he said. Söder told Bavarian public television. “Of course, polls are not everything, but if a clear trend emerges after a few months, it can not just be ignored.”
After leading conservative lawmakers discussed the issue Sunday, Mr. Söder said he was willing to go if the Christian Democrats supported him. If not, he added, he would cooperate, “without any resentment.”
But on Monday, after the management of each party backed their own leader, Mr. Söder suddenly changed his mind. During a closed-door meeting of conservative lawmakers on Tuesday, he continued to campaign for his right to run for chancellor. After four hours of discussions, almost two-thirds of those present expressed their support for the Bavarian leader – including members of Mr Laschet’s party.
In a country that views the art of compromise as a valuable skill for a leader, the public game of political chicken can be costly. At a time when green environmentalists are rapidly increasing in popularity and are now on the heels of the conservative knee-jerk, they can afford such public dissatisfaction.
‘At the end of the day, both have to decide. There is no fixed procedure that clearly determines how it will end, ”said prof. Thorsten Fass, a political scientist at the Free University of Berlin, said. Regardless of who chooses him as a candidate, the damage to the fight will still have to be repaired, Professor Fass said. “This is not a good way to start an election year.”
Both candidates said they would like to decide by the end of the week, and pressure from both parties is mounting for a quick solution.
Four other political parties are fighting on September 26 to win the most votes and seize power by forming a government and appointing a chancellor.
The center-left social democrats, who since 2017 the junior party in me. Merkel’s governing coalition has already named Finance and Vice-Chancellor Olaf Scholz as their choice for chancellor. The Greens, who are currently voting as the second strongest party ahead of the Social Democrats and close to the Conservatives, will announce their candidate on Monday.
Not everyone is ready for Mr. Laschet to count out. He is a politician whose recent successes by winning the North Rhine-Westphalia governorship with a popular president and the month-long race for the Christian Democratic leadership in January, both saw him win after coming from behind .
Mr Laschet also has the support of some of his party’s most senior and influential members, including former finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble, who has been in power since the Conservatives first tore a chancellor candidate in 1979.
“If Laschet has the nerve and still has the leadership of his party behind him, Söder can say he accepts it, and then use his position to negotiate a strong ministerial post for his party in a potential future government,” he said. Ursula Münch, director of the Academy of Political Education in Tutzing.
On the other hand, if there is enough pressure from within the party on Mr Laschet, he can Söder conceded for the sake of the party and the need to continue. This will give the Bavarian leader a victory that will serve to enforce his reputation as a shrewd maverick who will change his policy to suit the public vote. While the public favor in Bavaria of the right-wing Alternative for Germany shifted to environmentalist Greens, he abandoned an anti-immigrant stance and made an effort to save honeybees, to the anger of farmers who had long been the grassroots of holding his party.
“He is intelligent, fast and rhetorically strong,” she said. Munich about mr. Söder said. “He’s capable of pushing people into a corner while keeping a back door open for himself, and Laschet can’t hold a candle in that sense.”